


(No Longer) Familiar Spaces

by TheAmazingOntos



Series: Change [4]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Magic Revealed, Mild Language, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27101095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmazingOntos/pseuds/TheAmazingOntos
Summary: After a year in hospital, does what I did with my life still count?
Series: Change [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960861





	(No Longer) Familiar Spaces

Yesterday, I left the hospital, to return home and continue my life. Today, I have to deal with the new facts of the world, like the one that says I lost all of my stuff over the past year. 

"Hopefully, there's somebody I know still working in the Ministry. Preferably someone who isn't an asshole's asshole," I say to myself as I walk up to the building. 

Morbid curiosity makes me walk around to the side entrance, to see the food court I almost died in one year ago. I push open the door, look in, and everything's... normal. Looking at it, you'd never guess that someone almost died here, another did die right outside, or even that the world it was built in will never exist again. 

I walk through, retracing the path my two coworkers and I took on that fateful day, back to the elevators. My security card works, even though it really shouldn't, and I go up to the floor with Human Resources(not Human Relations, because they view us as resources, not people).

My card gets me through the door(bureaucratic inertia, folks), and I walk right up to the front desk, manned by two new persons. Mentally bracing myself, I walk up to them and say, "Good morning."

For the next twenty minutes, they dance around my requests to speak to someone senior as much as they can. I can feel my temper shortening, but I try to remember that they're just kids, from my decrepit age of thirty two (almost thirty three, but I have a few days to go).

Eventually, someone who knows me wanders up to see who they're talking to, and I can move on with my life. "Vergil, what are you doing here? How are you doing?" Mrs. A says, with a wide smile that I instantly have doubts about. 

"I'm here to find out if I still have a job in the Public Sector. I've been in a hospital for the last year, so things could be worse. I could have stayed dead, after all," I say quietly.

"Ok, come into my office and let's discuss that," she says with another of those smiles. It suddenly clicks, what that smile reminds me of. It's not a human smiling at another human, but more like a predator showing off their teeth. 

With that thought, I enter her office and sit close to the door, on the edge of my seat. I was warned by the nurse before I left that there are groups out there who have targeted magic users, and umbramancers among them specifically, for death. They believe that magic comes from ungodly sources, with necromancers and umbramancers being singled out, as they raise the dead and consort with dark powers, respectively( I don't know what they're talking about, because I haven't "consorted" with anyone or anything in almost eight years). 

"So, Vergil, what can I do to help you?" Mrs. A asks again as she settles behind her desk. "You've been away from work for a while, and nobody knew what happened to you."

"I just want to know if I still work in the Public Sector, or if I should start looking for another job," I say again. Now, I just want to leave this building and these people. I don't know which is worse, not recognizing anyone or seeing a stranger wearing a familiar face.

"First, I have to ask a question, due to the date you went missing on. As far as you are aware, do you have any magical alignments, and if so, have you undergone a S.M.A.R.T test?" She asks, again completely ignoring my request.

"Yes, I did," I growl, annoyed that I'm being ignored right to my face. "I tested out category five in umbramancy and two as artificer." 

Picking up on my obvious annoyance, but choosing to do nothing about it, Mrs. A says, "You can have your service transferred to the National Security's Empowered Personnel division. They take any mages they can get their hands on. I'll handle the transfer for you, effective today."

"Good, I'll go there immediately. I need to start putting things in place again," I say mostly to myself as I walk out the door, no longer caring how rude such an action is. I just want to leave, as I can no longer stand being around these people, who represent a past that I can never return to.


End file.
